The Children's Allied Health Service has said it can't accept any more referrals for autism assessment and developmental delays for children because of increased demand. Picture: Giulio Saggin Source: The Sunday Mail (Qld)

A MAJOR public health service has been called to an urgent meeting today after turning away pre-schoolers at risk of autism and developmental problems.

The Children's Allied Health Service, at Sunshine Hospital, has written to local kindergartens saying it can't accept any more referrals for autism assessment and developmental delays for children who will be attending school next year, because of increased demand.

One pre-school said the move would affect children it identified as potentially having speech, language, physical or behavioural problems.

North Sunshine Kindergarten director Carmen Gomez said some children would start school undiagnosed. Last year, eight of the kinder's kids were referred to Western Health.

Sunshine North Primary School principal Ken Ryan said children who went to school undiagnosed could wait for up to a year for funding to be approved for extra services to support their learning.

Western Health's Jennie Allen wrote there was a 16-month wait for autism assessments and an eight-month wait for multi-disciplinary allied health screens. This meant the service could not offer intervention before the start of the 2014 school year.

She suggested that children go to private practitioners or be put on a waiting list for 2014 if there was a chance they could do a second year of four-year-old kindergarten.

Opposition spokeswoman for children and young adults Jenny Mikakos said:

"This is just another example of the privatisation by stealth that is happening in the public health system under the Napthine Government, which will only place untold pressure on primary schools in years to come."

Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development Wendy Lovell said Western Health got more than $1 million a year from her department to provide the specialist multi-disciplinary allied health services.

She has instructed the department to call an urgent meeting with Western Health today.

"Western Health chose to send the letters without first speaking with department representatives or myself," she said.

Western Health spokeswoman Hannah Hammad said referrals to the paediatric allied health service had risen because of the baby boom.

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